Faculty and Staff Testimonials

Over the years the Advanced Manufacturing Lab has provided excellent technical support to our American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) student chapter in the National Student Steel Bridge Competition. The complex “quick-connect joints” produced at the Lab are highly innovative and have been the technical catalyst for our ASCE Team to achieve national standing in the competition. In addition to producing outstanding machine parts, Mr. Molnar and his expert staff are sensitive about maximizing the educational value of the project. They meet with the students to review their design and to make helpful suggestions about how it can be improved. The end result is a successful bridge and a worthwhile learning experience for our students. We are really fortunate to have this high caliber technical resource available at NJIT.

John R. Schuring, PhD, PEInterim DeanNewark College of EngineeringNew Jersey Institute of Technology

The NJIT Center for Manufacturing Systems has been an excellent source of support for our scientific research in the past seven years. The CMS has manufactured many of the components that we use in our neurophysiology experiments and has always delivered the products in a timely fashion and at low cost. The staff of CMS, especially Joe Molnar, have also greatly helped in the design of complex parts, such as the peltier cooling device that we use for adjusting the temperature of the biological solutions, and in refurbishing delicate equipment. The CMS is a symbol of excellence at NJIT and the professionalism and quality of service should be a model for other departments at the institute.

The maintenance of our position at the “Edge of Knowledge” as New Jersey’s technological university requires that our campus have a premier machine shop. The CMS shop, under the excellent and talented leadership of Joe Molnar with support of a dedicated staff, meets this need every day. Over the years, I’ve brought challenging jobs to the CMS shop in support of education and research. Joe welcomes a challenge with enthusiasm. On many occasions, my picture of what I wanted was unclear. With experience and cleverness, Joe showed me how my requirements could be met with quality, at a minimum cost, and in reduced time. I strongly recommend that you bring your machining jobs to Joe – for research or teaching, from on-campus or off-campus. The quality of the work is excellent.

My research group has utilized the GITC machine shop extensively over the last three years. We have found the machine shop to be extremely responsive to our machining needs. Typically they deliver ahead of the promised schedule. On several occasions we have been able to walk into Joe Molnar's office with a concept and a sketch and leave with a project ready of machining. The machinists are knowledgeable and efficient. The machine shop has been indispensable for our research at NJIT and at national laboratories.

The machine shop of the Center for Manufacturing Systems, headed by Mr. Joe Molnar, is a valuable in-house resource to the Medical Device Concept Laboratory as well as the greater NJIT research community.

The ability to stop by whenever need arises, get help on the spot on small jobs and fast response on designs, price proposals and parts manufacturing contributes a great deal to the efficiency and success of the research projects.

The machine shop itself is equipped with modern CNC metal machining and has access to other shops with additional capabilities. The real asset though is the machine shop staff who is very professional and experienced, and has the willingness to discuss any need, big or small, available technologies cost-performance issues.

In addition to making metal parts, usually one of a kind, the machine shop staff is on hand to solve in real time small, yet disturbing problems. Examples of such handy help, available at the machine shop, are fixing broken threads, providing components like screws and nuts, performing precise measurements and even loaning tools when the work cannot be brought to the shop. The in-house availability of a resource that can solve on the spot such problems saves time and costs and is highly appreciated. It certainly increases the efficiency of MDCL operations.

Over the last five years, there have been many occasions when we had come to the Center for Manufacturing Systems’ Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory with tough and demanding machining jobs. These jobs required careful surface topology control, designing of membrane support plates and cover plates. Some of them were of quite large dimensions while others were of very small dimensions. Most often they required working with plastics of one kind or another. Many times we required a number of units at very short notice. I must say that Joe Molnar and his band of machinists took care of our needs to our complete satisfaction. The machined pieces performed quite well at a Pilot Plant Project Demonstration that was recently conducted at the premises of a major Corporation in Connecticut.

We are grateful that we have these facilities at NJIT and that the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory delivers quality outputs for us whenever we have come up with demanding machining jobs.

I wish you the very best and hope that your shop will continue to take care of our needs in the future.